


Carpooling

by TheWhiteLily



Series: Transport (Ace!Sherlock) [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ambiguity, Asexual Sherlock, Introspection, M/M, Oh Sherlock., Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7881322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's body has only ever been transport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carpooling

**Author's Note:**

> For the fan_flashworks "House" challenge. A little sideways of the prompt, but the thing my mind kept coming back to was a line from a song by Tim Minchin (one of Australia’s great exports).

 

> This is my body.  And I live in it.  
>   - [_Not Perfect_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDGuPp1np4o), Tim Minchin

  
Sherlock’s body has only ever been transport.  
  
He’d always been somewhat bemused by the way other people treated their own living carcass like something more than that.  They seemed to feel some mystical connection, as though the construction of the twelve or so stone of meat and bone that carried their minds around made any _difference_ to anything they were.  
  
Perhaps their body was the wrong gender (the wrong gender for _what_ , exactly?)  They indulged in a self-hating cycle of binging and dieting.  Put themselves at the mercy of sexual desires, conducted affairs and murdered unfaithful lovers.  Invested their self-worth in sporting prowess, or short-lived physical beauty.  
  
Of course, Sherlock’s was an attractive body.  He could see that for himself in the mirror, even if the alteration of various people’s body language and dilating pupils hadn’t made it obvious.  Molly.  The Woman.  John, despite whatever reason it was that he kept denying being gay.  But it wasn’t as though what other people saw when they looked at the house his brain lived in  _mattered_ , apart from how he could use it.  
  
And of course Sherlock dressed his body well, paid attention to the little clues in his appearance that he would have used to read someone else, and made sure they said what he wanted people to hear. 

People responded to the image.  To the slender-tailored suit, the coat, the less-than-entirely crazed hair.  It bought him much-needed wiggle room to manipulate initial assumptions about him.  A body dressed well meant that people saw an eccentric and gave his manners a certain leeway that he was happy to take advantage of.  An unwashed body, strung-out on drugs and dressed in torn and filthy clothes while he yelled out unpublicised details about a murder, was more likely to find itself locked in a cell than transporting the mind it carried anywhere useful for actually solving the crime.  
  
Sherlock had run the experiment a few ways at Scotland Yard before he finally settled on a sustainable compromise; he could be himself, mostly, as long as he dressed well above their pay-grade.  
  
John had upset the balance.  
  
John was a creature of his body; his absurdly regular need for food and sleep and sex and all those dull things appeared to be only partially psychosomatic, and no matter how Sherlock tried to stretch _that_ mental link he’d never managed to entirely break it.  When John’s body went without for too long—barely a day, for most things—he became so surly and difficult to deal with it was easier to send him away for a few hours so that Sherlock could focus.  
  
Sherlock’s body worked _for_ him, and it had long learned the futility of sending requests to management—requests for food, sleep, or whatever else—requests he had absolutely no intention of granting.  
  
He’d learned the hard way to give it what it needed before it passed out, of course.  Mostly.  But not without resentment for the shaky feeling that came along with the realisation that he actually wasn’t going to make it to the end of a puzzle without ingesting something.  Or the slow, heavy feeling of tiredness taking over that meant he would have to prop it up with cocaine if he was going to be able to keep working.  Or the mornings when he woke up to discover that his body had—not just insinuated unlikely technicolour creations into the ordered solitude of his mind during the night—but had apparently decided that his pyjama bottoms were due a washing.  
  
Ugh.  When _that_ happened, he tended to wrap himself in a sheet and try to avoid thinking about it for as long as possible.  
  
Sherlock had got used to allowing for John’s needs, got used to meeting in a café or to heading back to Baker Street for a few hours when he needed to think, letting John take care of sleeping and whatever else he needed.  Got used to giving him small tasks that would bring him into Sherlock’s personal space, into contact with his own body.  
  
Experimentation had proved that, when Sherlock allotted him regular physical contact, the period of time between the episodes where John’s unsettling girlfriend-seeking behaviour went critical could almost double.  
  
After the fall, John’s absence upset the balance again.  
  
Despite his best efforts, Sherlock’s body seemed to have got used to being regularly granted some things.  Got used to finding an empty plate of toast crumbs beside him which, apparently, he’d eaten without ever registering its presence.  Got used to waking up on the couch four hours later than he’d planned for the cold to wake him, underneath an unasked-for blanket.  Got used to the electric little thrill of contact that buzzed through him whenever John came close enough to touch.  
  
But life on the run, tracking down the outskirts of Moriarty’s web, was hardly suited for regular food or sleep, and it was little enough trouble to ignore his body’s plaintive appeals and the occasional yearning memory.  Back at Baker Street, alone, with the memories somehow made vivid again by the environment but without the distraction of the campaign to end Moriarty’s life's work for good, the cravings became crisp and close again.  
  
It was easy enough to ignore.  And it would have been easy enough to ignore his body’s demands for a chemical substitute.  
  
Sherlock simply chose not to.  
  
He remained in control, no matter that John and his boring brother imagined an addiction of his transport could control _him_.  They were mistaken.  
  
He was glad, nonetheless, when his transport’s _other_ addiction resumed regular service.  When Mary was gone and John was back where he belonged, back supplying surreptitious food and warmth and casual touches.  Sherlock _was_ glad.  Letting John look after his body’s nagging requests without him having to think about it was a far more efficient system than the distraction that had become of his absence.  
  
Sherlock hadn’t wished for anything more than a return to their previous equilibrium, but things had changed and that equilibrium was difficult to find.  In some ways, John seemed to have slipped seamlessly back into place, but in others....   John was sad, and not in a way that could be fixed by a ridiculous rooftop chase.

Sherlock knew, because that was the first thing he'd tried.

He made sure to feed John's need for adrenaline, his need to be useful, his need to _wonder_.  His need to be connected.  Sherlock made sure to be as thrilling, and as infuriating, and as marvellous as he could possibly be—and he made sure to do everything he could to delay the moment when John became so lonely and touch-starved that he lost focus on what was important. 

He seemed to be succeeding, because he had John's full attention now, even if he could see the sidelong dilated glances and associated avoidance becoming more frequent.  Even if he could see John’s pensive reveries lengthening, then firming and settling into a worrying determination.  
  
Then came the day when they arrived home from a case, flushed with adrenaline and success—a murderer behind bars, an innocent victim saved, and the police commissioner eating his own words in front of the press.  
  
And then John wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s neck, pulled him down to meet his lips half-way, and kissed him.  
  
Sherlock wasn’t sure what to do about that.  It was an intriguing sensation.  Wetter than he’d expected.  There’d been Janine of course.  That had been wet, too, in a manageable sort of way, but somehow John had never been wet in the dreams.  That had only ever become apparent when Sherlock woke up.  Ugh.  
  
“Okay?” whispered John, pulling back a little and staring at him.  
  
At this range it was disconcerting the way his eyes shifted to focus first on one of Sherlock’s and then the other.  John’s eyes were dark blue with a pale brown starburst around the—large, very large—pupils.  
  
“Sherlock?” he said.  “Have I been reading this right?  I thought…”  
  
Sherlock loved John, of course he did.  If there was one thing he’d made his peace with during his time away, it was that.  It was okay to love John, sensible even, to recognise the value of such a unique individual to his work and his life.  Sensible to recognise the diminishment and distraction Sherlock had experienced in his absence, and to do what he could to keep him.  
  
And with Mary out of the picture, obviously John had more specific needs.  Sherlock had been doing his best to ensure John didn't want for human contact, but doubling the time between girlfriends had only ever been a stopgap measure at best.  It wouldn’t be long before he was on the market again, searching for a new partner.  Of course, he was unlikely to find another Mary—another woman willing to share her husband’s heart with Sherlock—so it wouldn’t last.  Sherlock would call, John would come running, and the girlfriend would move on to an easier target.  And John would be unhappy again.  
  
Sherlock hadn't realised there could be another option.  His body might be only transport, but it had proved itself to be serviceable and adaptable to circumstance.  
  
“Yes,” he said, at last, and frowned at John’s abrupt absence from in front of him.  
  
A brief glance around the room placed him at the table, where he’d apparently settled himself in to wait with a fresh cup of tea.  
  
“I could see you needed to work through that,” said John with a nervous smile.  “Have you figured it out?”  
  
“Yes,” repeated Sherlock.  
  
He walked around the table to stand next to John, and waited until the other man tore his eyes from the apparently fascinating sight of his tea and looked up.  
  
Experimentally, Sherlock reached out and touched the tips of his fingers to the tight muscle at the corner of John’s jaw—the one that always telegraphed him screwing up his courage—and then carefully drew them along the skin in a line to cradle the point of his chin.  
  
He watched John’s pupils dilate, watched his expression relax, the tight lines around his eyes easing, the corners of his mouth tucking in with satisfaction.  He watched John stand, and then John wrapped his arms around Sherlock again, this time in a hug, burying his face in Sherlock’s neck and giving a hysterical half-giggle, half-sob of relief.  
  
Sherlock’s body sent an urgent message, which he ignored.  
  
Deliberately, if a second late, he lifted tentative hands to John’s back, closing the circle.  
  
Still half-giggling, John looked up, his eyes alight with happiness and familiar wonder, and kissed Sherlock again, pressing the smile-lines on his face against Sherlock’s lips, rasping the 0.4mm beard shadow left by a mid-range electric shaver against his chin, and then he opened his mouth and….  
  
It was wet again.  The urgent message from Sherlock’s body abruptly changed signal.  
  
He ignored it for a moment, but… while it was tolerable, it probably wasn’t sustainably so.  Janine had been one thing: he’d known that wouldn’t last long.  But this was  _John_ ….  

Sherlock never wanted to have to hope that _John_ wouldn’t last long.  
  
Perhaps that part wasn’t necessary.  
  
He pulled back.  “Just lips?” he asked uncertainly, making John’s eyes widen.  
  
“Oh, you don’t like…” John said, looking embarrassed, and then worried.  “Oh.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to—sorry.  Anything else not, er… not, your area?”  
  
Sherlock shrugged, and leaned in to brush his mouth just underneath John’s eyebrow.  It was an interesting spot to feel against the nerve-rich skin.  He turned his head slightly back and forth, sparse individual hairs dragging against his upper lip, the soft skin underneath bunching and following his movement.  
  
“I haven’t the faintest.  I’m not sure I have an area,” he said honestly.  “I've just got you.”  
  
When he pulled back enough to see him again, John’s eyes were closed, and the expression on his face was pained.  
  
“Oh god, Sherlock,” he said, sounding somehow devastated and joyful at the same time.  “I’ve been such an idiot about this.”  
  
And then he kissed Sherlock again, mouth a little open again but this time without the invasion, lips pressing and shifting dry and firm against his, setting sensitive nerves alight and tingling, and Sherlock was fairly certain this was another part of living with John that his body was going to become used to very quickly, would start demanding in its absence.  
  
That was okay, though, because hopefully Sherlock wouldn’t have to fake his death again any time soon.  And hopefully, if he took better care of John’s body, like John did of his, then John wouldn’t be running off marrying assassins again in a hurry.  

It couldn't be too hard, after all.  Millions of idiots did it every day.    
  
Besides, Sherlock had always been in control of his transport.  
  
Neurotransmitters, hormones, cravings.  John.  Like the cocaine, an addiction of his transport couldn't control him.  He could stop any time he wanted to.  
  
But this was John.  

And hopefully, he would never have to.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about doing an Ace!Sherlock series for a while, because reasons, so I think this will have at least one sequel.


End file.
